JohnH wrote:


We have a Christmas Boat Parade here on the Occoquan River.

Apparently, some of the Seattle folks have received word of the political
incorrectness of using the word "Christmas".


http://www.sailing-in-seattle.com/christmas_parade.htm

This one looks like a pretty big one!


The parade you see in the photo is a group of boats that follow one of
the commercial charter vessels around the lake, including the
"Whoodat", the subject of that particular blog.
While most groups with a diverse membership (where everybody may not be
a Christian) and groups with any sort of government funding use the
term "holiday cruise" (there are a number of various religious holidays
all about the same time each year) or "lighted boat cruise", a private
organization such as the charter company can certainly declare their
event a "Christmas" cruise, and more power to them. The charter company
hosts choral groups from local schools, cruises near the shoreline, and
stops at regular intervals for the choirs to sing Christmas carols.

I did this once, and won't again. As you can see in the photo, there is
no order among the informally "trailing" boats. They just mill around
in a jamb, and night vision goes straight to heck as the "Christmas
Ship" is covered with bright white light bulbs. A certain portion of
the
skippers are fortified with hot buttered rum, etc, and the
fortification continues to improve as the evening progresses. When it's
time for the Christmas Ship to motor down the lake a mile or so for the
next stop, all of the trailers start taking off in different directions
and at different speeds. Fun for the passengers and shoreside
spectators, maybe, but a needless risk to the boat considering the
conditions.